Return to Rose Cottage

by Sherryl Woods

  At least none picked up on the connection until the waitress came to take their order. She’d worked here for years and took one look at Jo and beamed. “Jo D’Angelo, if you aren’t a sight for sore eyes. It’s been a long time, girl. I see your sisters in here all the time these days, but you’ve been keeping yourself scarce. Heard you were with them once, but I missed you. Glad you’re finally back, though I can’t see that your taste in men has improved much over the years.” She grinned at Pete when she said it.

  Jo laughed. “Hello, Gloria. I just came down recently to stay at Rose Cottage for a bit.”

  The waitress immediately looked disappointed. “You’re not moving here?”

  “I haven’t decided yet,” Jo said, ignoring Pete’s stunned expression.

  After the woman had gone to place their order, Pete looked at Jo. “What did that mean? I thought you’d pretty much decided to stick around.”

  She used his obvious dismay to sneak in another play for his house. “Maybe if I had the perfect house…” she said and let her voice trail off.

  He shook his head. “Don’t you pull that on me,” he scolded. “Don’t make me responsible for your going or staying.”

  Jo simply stared at him, letting the words sink in. Even though they’d been spoken lightly, she doubted he realized how telling they were. It was a warning, in fact, one she would do well not to ignore. If she stayed here, it had to be all about her and what she wanted, not about what might or might not happen with Pete. She’d very nearly forgotten that in the warm glow of being with him—and with Davey—these past couple of days. Her spirits, so high when she’d left Rose Cottage, took a nosedive.

  When the waffles came, they might just as well have been sawdust. Even though Pete was watching her with a worried look, she barely managed to choke down more than a few bites. Even Davey seemed to notice that something was wrong. He fell silent and concentrated on his breakfast, finishing his own waffle in record time.

  “Can I go outside?” he begged his father.

  Before Pete could reply, Jo said, “If your dad’s not finished, I’ll come with you.”

  “He can go by himself,” Pete countered. “I think we should talk.”

  “Not here and not now,” she said just as firmly, already scooting out of the booth and pulling on her jacket.

  “But you didn’t eat. You said you love waffles and that you were as hungry as me,” Davey said. “Did you get sick?”

  “No,” she assured him. At least not the way he meant. She held out her hand. “Maybe we can walk to the park and build a snowman. What do you say, Davey?”

  His concern for her mood vanished at once. “Cool. Is it okay, Dad?”

  Pete looked as if he wanted to argue, but he finally relented. “I’ll meet you there in a few minutes,” he said, his voice tight.

  On the way to the park, Jo was grateful for Davey’s nonstop chatter. And once they were there, she forced herself to concentrate on helping him build a snowman. Since the temperature had risen slightly once the sun came out, the snow was melting fast now. The poor snowman wasn’t nearly as plump as he should have been. He looked about as defeated and sad as she felt. Not even the curved stick Davey found to use as a mouth could perk him up. The makeshift smile looked forced.

  How had things turned upside down in less than twenty-four hours? Jo wondered. This time yesterday, she’d been filled with joy and hope. Now it was as if she’d run headlong into reality, all because of a few careless words that Pete had spoken, probably half in jest.

  While Davey scrambled through the park looking for more sticks to create arms and something to use for eyes and a nose, Jo sat on a nearby bench and watched. She released a sigh when Pete sat down next to her, his expression troubled.

  “Mind telling me what happened back there?” he asked quietly. “One minute everything was fine and you had a smile on your face, the next you looked as if you’d caught me kicking your dog.”

  She could have lied and pretended that nothing had happened, but he would never buy it, not after she’d all but walked out on him. She might as well admit to the truth.

  “You said something that reminded me that all this is just temporary.”

  He stared at her blankly. “You were the one who said you were only here for a while, not me. What did I say?”

  “That you couldn’t be responsible for my decision to stay or go.” She met his shocked gaze. “And you were right. It has to be about me. All of this…” She waved a hand to encompass him and Davey. “It’s not mine.”

  “I was just teasing you about the house,” Pete said, clearly contrite. “I thought you knew that.”

  “I know that’s what you intended,” she agreed. “But there was an underlying truth that I can’t ignore.”

  “Underlying truth,” he repeated as if it were a foreign concept. “I only say what I mean, Jo. There was no underlying truth or undercurrent or hidden meaning. That’s a female thing.”

  She shot a sharp look at him. “You really don’t want to go there.”

  “I just meant that you can count on whatever I say. I don’t have hidden agendas.”

  She gave him a sad look. “I used to believe that. Now I know that I have to listen to what you don’t say as much as what you do.”

  “And you got all this from some stupid comment I made as a joke?” he asked, clearly exasperated. “Yes.”

  “Well, listen to this, then,” he said heatedly, grasping her shoulders and pulling her close, then claiming her mouth with a ferocity that sucked the breath right out of her lungs.

  Only after what seemed like an eternity did the kiss gentle before ending on a sigh. His. Maybe hers.

  He gazed deep into her eyes. “Did you hear what I was saying then?”

  Shaken, she nodded. She hadn’t needed words to get that particular message.

  “What? Say it, so I can be sure we’re on the same page about that much at least.”

  “That you want me.”

  He shoved a hand through his hair. “And that’s all?” he asked with evident frustration. “You just felt the wanting?”

  She nodded.

  “Not the love?”

  Oh, how she wanted to believe in the love, but she couldn’t let herself. “No,” she said softly. “Not the love.”

  Pete regarded her wearily. “Then, darlin’, I think you might want to consider the possibility that you’re tonedeaf, if all you can hear is what might tear us apart, instead of the one thing that will keep us together.”

  He stood up, called to Davey, then gave her another of those weary looks. “I’ll take you home now. Give you some time to think.”

  Jo nodded. “That’s probably best,” she said, though being home alone with her thoughts was the last thing she really wanted.

  When Davey came up, he studied them both worriedly. “Are you guys fighting?”

  Jo forced a smile. “No.”

  “Yes,” Pete said, then ruffled his son’s hair. “But we’ll settle it. That’s a promise.”

  “I hope so,” Davey said, his gaze on Jo. “’Cause I want you to spend time with me and Dad next time I come.”

  “If I’m here, it’s a date,” Jo promised.

  But if she had even half a grain of sense left in her head, she’d make sure to be long gone.

  For the first time in the two years that he and his son had been separated, Pete regretted the boy’s presence. He wanted to settle this thing with Jo before it got all blown out of proportion and she did something they’d both regret. But he knew he simply had to back-burner that conversation until he got back from Richmond on Monday. It made the rest of Sunday and the trip down to Kelsey’s drag out like water torture.

  They were halfway down there when Davey announced, “Dad, I’ve been thinking.”

  “About?”

  “Jo.”

  He glanced over at his son. “Oh?”

  “I think she’s mad at us.”

  “Not us, kiddo. Me.”
/>   “How come?”

  “I’m not entirely sure, but I’ll straighten it out.”

  “And she’ll be there when I come back?”

  “Yes,” Pete said. She would be there, no matter what he had to do to guarantee it. “You really liked her, didn’t you?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What did you like about her?” he asked curiously. Pete knew what he loved—her strength, her humor, her gentleness—but those weren’t the things that would appeal to a six-year-old.

  Davey’s expression turned thoughtful. “Well, she’s pretty and all that, but I liked it best that she didn’t care about getting all messed up. She played with me and just had fun. Mom’s always worried about her hair and stuff.”

  Pete sighed. He didn’t want Davey to start making this kind of comparison. “There’s nothing wrong with your mom wanting to look nice.”

  “I know,” Davey replied. “But there’s nothing wrong with having fun, either.”

  “No,” Pete agreed. “No, there’s not.”

  He was still thinking about that when he got back home that night. Jo had brought fun back into both their lives. He wasn’t going to let that go without a fight, especially not over some silly argument he didn’t entirely understand. Underlying truths be damned, he thought viciously. He intended to talk to her in plain English until she got how much he loved her.

  But before he could call her, he noticed that the answering machine light was blinking like crazy. He pressed the button for messages as he took off his jacket.

  “We need to talk,” Kelsey announced, her tone petulant. “Who is this woman that Davey was going on and on about? Call me the minute you get in.”

  Pete sighed. He’d anticipated this. Kelsey hated him interfering in her social life, but she had no such qualms about involving herself in his. And it went without saying that Davey would inadvertently get her all riled up with his glowing remarks about the new woman in Pete’s life.

  Up till now, there hadn’t been many opportunities for her to ask questions. The few women he’d dated since the divorce had merely been passing through. Because of that, he’d kept them away from his son. He hadn’t wanted Davey to go through some perpetual cycle of attachment and loss the way he had as a boy.

  He’d broken that rule with Jo. Though she was still cautious with him—more than cautious, if yesterday was anything to go by—he knew she was in his life to stay. He wanted her and his son to get to know each other and to get along.

  Until this moment, listening to his ex-wife’s tone, he’d been ecstatic at how well the weekend had gone. Jo and Davey had taken to each other at once. It had never occurred to Pete to tell Davey not to mention Jo to his mother. Even if it had, he wouldn’t have done it. Teaching a kid to keep secrets from one parent or another just to keep the peace was flat-out wrong.

  Based on the six messages that were more of the same and because he knew his ex-wife would only keep calling until she got the answers she wanted, he grabbed a bottle of beer from the fridge and called her back.

  “What’s up?” he asked, as if she hadn’t already made that plain in her message.

  “Who’s Jo?”

  “A friend.”

  “I thought you said you weren’t going to parade your women in front of Davey.”

  He bit back a sharp retort about her parade of men through their son’s life. “For starters, I don’t have a lot of women in my life, so there’s never going to be a parade.”

  She hesitated, then asked, “What’s different about this one?”

  Before he could answer, she gasped. “Oh, my God, Jo—she’s the one, isn’t she? Jo’s the reason our marriage fell apart. Jo, what was her name? Something Italian. D’Angelo? That’s it. Is that who you were with this weekend? The woman who broke up our marriage?”

  Pete was stunned by the totally unfounded accusation. “What the hell are you talking about, Kelsey? Our marriage fell apart because you were unhappy. You didn’t want to stay here, and I wouldn’t move.”

  “I didn’t want to stay there because I knew you were still in love with someone else and that everything in that stupid place was a reminder of her. The whole town knew I was your second choice.”

  Pete clamped a tight lid on his temper. “You’re revising history, Kelsey. I did everything I could think of to make our marriage work. I never once threw some other woman in your face.”

  “But she was there just the same,” she insisted stubbornly. “Don’t you think I knew all about your sweet little summer romance with that girl from Boston? The whole county knew about it. Even when we made love, I knew she was in your head. You couldn’t stop talking about her. The two of you were sickening.”

  “And yet you couldn’t wait to sleep with me,” he reminded her.

  “I wasn’t in that bed alone, hot stuff,” she reminded him. “You didn’t put up much of a fight.”

  Pete sighed. He hated it, but there was no denying what she said. Rehashing it again wasn’t going to get them anywhere. “Kelsey, all of that happened a long time ago. It doesn’t matter now.”

  “It does if she’s the woman you introduced to our son. I won’t have it, Pete,” she said heatedly. “I won’t allow you to humiliate me like that. It was bad enough that everyone in town knew about her, that they knew you’d only married me because of the baby.”

  “How am I humiliating you?” he asked, genuinely baffled by her spin on his relationship with Jo. “We’ve been divorced for a couple of years now. How many men have you introduced into Davey’s life? Have I ever suggested that you’re doing it to humiliate me? My only complaint is when you neglect him while you’re courting your latest conquest.”

  “This is different,” she insisted. “This Jo is the woman who came between us.”

  “I think you have that backward,” he said. “The truth is that you’re the woman who came between me and Jo. That was my fault, and I took responsibility for it. When you got pregnant, I married you.”

  “Only out of obligation,” she repeated.

  “Yes,” he said, seeing little point in sugarcoating the truth when they both knew it. “But I wanted it to work, Kelsey. I gave it my all. You can’t possibly deny that.”

  “Really? How many times were you thinking of her when we made love? Don’t you think I knew that? You’d get this faraway, sad look in your eyes, and I always knew you wished I was her.”

  The conversation was spinning wildly out of control, and Pete was tired of it. She wouldn’t believe anything he said anyway, not when she was in this bitter, accusatory mood.

  “I’ve got to go,” he said. “We’ll discuss this some other time.”

  “I won’t let you see Davey if you insist on having her around,” she threatened.

  It was the last straw. His temper snapped. “Don’t you dare try to use that boy as a weapon,” Pete retorted furiously. “Two can play at that game, Kelsey, and trust me, if I play, I’ll play to win.”

  He hung up before she could reply to that, then threw the half-empty beer bottle across the room. It shattered against the wall, sending glass and golden liquid raining down.

  “Pete?”

  He turned to find Jo staring at him, her eyes wide with shock.

  “I’m sorry,” he said tightly. “I didn’t know you were there.”

  “I just got here. I knocked, but when you didn’t answer, I came on in. I hope that’s okay.”

  “Yeah, sure,” he said, raking a hand through his hair. “Why are you here?”

  She regarded him hesitantly. “I came over because I thought we ought to talk, but if this is a bad time, that can wait. What on earth happened just now? Who were you yelling at?”

  “Just a little chat with my ex-wife,” he said, forcing a light note into his voice. “She knows how to push my buttons.”

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “Absolutely not,” he said flatly. “Now come here and kiss me.”

  She gave him a skeptical look. “Don’t y
ou think we should clean up the mess first?” She gestured toward the puddle of beer and broken glass. “That one, and the mess I made of things yesterday morning?”

  He glanced at the glass and liquid on the floor. It could wait. So could the conversation, if her being here meant she was reconsidering that stupid underlying truth garbage. There was one way to find out.

  “We could mop up the mess,” he agreed. “Or we could go upstairs and make love. You tell me which sounds like more fun.”

  “Going upstairs, definitely,” she said, but she still didn’t move. Nor did she accept his outstretched hand. “But I think we should talk first. About what happened yesterday morning and about what happened just now. Something tells me the latter is even more important.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s real life, Pete. You can’t protect me from the bad stuff. And I know you’re still angry about what happened yesterday. Let’s get it all out in the open. We can’t heal things and move on if we don’t face them.”

  “I’m not trying to protect you from anything,” he said defensively.

  She gave him a disbelieving look. “Do you honestly think I don’t see that you’re determined not to ever let anything hurt me again? You’re trying to make up for what happened seven years ago. You want to push all of that into some hole and bury it, pretend it never happened.”

  “So what if I am? What’s wrong with wanting you to be happy?”

  “Nothing. I love you for trying, but unfortunately life simply can’t be all smooth sailing. We have to be able to weather all of it.”

  “We’re not making love, are we?” he asked, resigned.

  She grinned at him. “Not just yet. You pick up the glass, and I’ll get some soapy water to clean up the mess.”

  “You know that’s the symptom, not the issue, don’t you?”

  “Of course, but you can tell me all about it while we work.”

  He laughed at the idea that he could explain it all so easily. “It’s not that big a mess. It won’t take that long to clean it up.”